Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of items of correspondence from Parliamentarians received by (a) his Department, (b) himself and (c) his ministerial team have not received a substantive response in each month since August 2024.

The Department is committed to meeting the target of responding to at least 80% of correspondence from Hon. Members within 20 working days. Parliament has a right to hold ministers to account. The Leader of the House of Commons wrote to all Cabinet members in November to remind ministers of their responsibilities to provide helpful and timely responses to Members' Parliamentary Questions and correspondence.

The Department receives some of the highest, and most sensitive, volumes of correspondence. In 2024 alone we received over 65,000 queries, with over 15,000 of those from Hon. Members. Ministerial correspondence performance data by Department is published annually by the Cabinet Office on the GOV.UK website.